The word “healthy” has so many different meanings to so many different people. There is truly no single way to define the term.

There is always a new food guide or workout plan that is released to try to sell being “healthy”. There are thousands of diets that are promoted to help you lose weight or get in shape, like the paleo diet, keto diet, going vegan or vegetarian, or intermittent fasting. These are just some examples of what people try to promote as being “healthy,” and what you need to do in order to eat healthy. This is the same way for exercising. There are so many different exercise programs that all seem to be the best way, like doing fasted cardio, weight training, or yoga. All these different ideas make it difficult for people to choose what to do, because there are so many conflicting methods to becoming “healthy”. That is not what being “healthy” should mean. Each person needs to create their own definition of the word.

Today marks Day 54 since I decided to give myself a belated New Year’s resolution and made a commitment to journaling. I originally set out to use it as a tool to encourage motivation, positivity, and alleviate some of the ideas that were overcrowding my thoughts with no other purpose than to feed my anxiety and the common habit of extreme overthinking. Then, I overthought how I was supposed to write in a journal.

We’re about 2 months into 2019, and I just want to know where everyone’s at with their 2019 resolutions? You know, those New Year’s goals you set out to achieve back in December, in order to gear up for 2019? Remember those?

Stats show that 80% of resolution fail by February, every year! That’s crazy!

Confession: I am a little bit of a high-stress person. I spend a lot of my mental energy worrying, thinking about all the things that could go wrong instead of looking on the bright side. In the world of psychology, we call this phenomenon “catastrophizing”. It’s no wonder that working out can sometimes feel like an added stress because I am already so drained by the chatter going on inside my own mind.

Between jade-rollers, salt rocks, and mediation caves, we are constantly inundated with new ways to make time for self-care but why not kick it old school, Freudian style, and go back to basics. What am I am talking about? The ultimate way to up your self-care routine, therapy.

Now, I think everyone should go to therapy; happy people, anxious people, conflicted people, all people. I’ve personally benefited from it and a number of my friends in recent years have as well. To me it’s the epitome of self-care and I love that the rest of the world is (slowly) starting to see it in the same way.

But, finding the right therapist and knowing which type of therapy will benefit you can be challenging, which is why I invited my long time friend and Registered Psychotherapist Erica Beatson to shed some light on what she does and what to consider when looking for help.

Your to-do list is never-ending. You seem to keep adding more things to it than you ever cross off. You feel like Sisyphus, continually pushing the same boulder up a mountain.

You feel like there is so much to do that you don’t know where to start. So, you don’t start at all, which isn’t helping. And now your Shitty Committee is in full-flow and you’re criticizing and judging yourself for not doing more and being productive.

It’s February, the month of love. Let’s take a moment for a little self love and check in with ourselves! We are two months into 2019 and I want to know how we are doing with our New Year’s resolutions. How many of us resolved to exercise more and get our #HIHmoment in daily, or a few times a week? How many of us are hitting our goals and how many are struggling? Whichever side of the fence you are on, it doesn’t hurt to have a few motivational words and some encouragement to keep going. So that’s what I’m going to give you today!

Do you ever find yourself fighting against healthy habits? Resenting every step of the way as if you have no choice? That was me. After reaching my heaviest weight back in 2014, I knew I had to do something about it – but simply making that choice wasn’t enough. There was always that negative association with diet and exercise, wishing that I didn’t have to work so hard in order to take care of myself. I felt trapped in a vicious cycle of gaining and losing the same amount of weight, as if there was no way out.

I used to ALWAYS fear making plans or going out with friends on the weekends because I thought that it would totally destroy my progress. I thought that all of the hard work & dedication I put in during the week would just magically and completely undo itself in those two days.

Let me be the one to break it to ya... that's 100% not true.

Honestly, life is all about BALANCE. If you’re able to go into each weekend event or experience with a good game plan, chances are you'll not only NOT ruin your progress, but you'll feel even better and more capable of continuing on your fitness journey in the long run.

At this time of year, it’s typical to focus on physical workouts and aesthetics, but how is your mental fitness? With a ton of tools, apps and journals, not to mention videos and programs like TED Talks that focus on productivity, positivity, self-reflection and growth it seems all we have to do is simply make time to commit to the practice. But it’s not always that easy and with so many options out there, where do you begin? It’s one of the things, Marc Champagne, co-founder of the app KYO wanted to help people with. KYO is a mental fitness app that combines curated content with guided self-reflection that you can use anywhere. Marc shares with us more about the app and his tips on how to get started working on your mental fitness.

If you are considering giving up the birth control pill as your method of contraception, you likely fall into one of three categories: you no longer want to deal with the side effects (moodiness, low libido, depression etc.), it no longer aligns with your healthy lifestyle, or you are hoping to conceive in the near future and you are concerned about fertility.

Few days have passed since we welcomed the New Year and most people seize this opportunity to start fresh. A clean slate means making resolutions for the betterment of people’s quality of life. In general, this time of the year also triggers many to jump-start their health journey or to make room for improvement.

Happy New Year HIH Family! In the new year, everyone has things they’d like to change, for me, this year I’d like to be more conscious about the ingredients in products I’m using. I’m not someone who is allergic to a lot of things or have sensitive skin so I wasn’t too picky when it came to the ingredients list in my products and as a girl … I use so many products on a daily basis!